Blue-headed Vireo
A quick hello from this Blue-headed Vireo! What spring migrants are you seeing now?
Read MoreYellow-crowned Night-Heron
The Yellow-crowned Night-Heron (Nyctanassa violacea) is an odd-looking creature, especially when you watch one creeping slowly through the salt marsh or perched high up in a tree. I do not want to add the demonic or monstrous label to them because they are lovable in their own way, but it feels like an appropriately strange species to highlight as we near Halloween. They can be found active throughout the day, but their somewhat secretive crepuscular and nocturnal feeding habits add to that feeling. I took these photos of a bird at a nest site earlier this spring. It was still working on...
Read MoreCommon Ravens
Common Ravens (Corvus corax) are known to be incredible fliers, soaring high in the sky and almost floating among the clouds, drifting and banking and turning and flipping with an endless array of aerial acrobatics. If you spend enough time hawk watching you will undoubtedly see them looking like a sizable raptor until fanning out that tail, showing off that bill and letting you hone in on that all black body. I watched these two Common Ravens interacting from afar as they dropped in altitude over a few minutes, croaking out their calls and interacting in every aerial maneuver one could...
Read MoreWhite-throated Sparrow
I recently caught this White-throated Sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis) in the middle of a meal… …which it seemed to try to hide from me until gulping it down. Their whites and yellows are much bolder right now than those that winter with us as they conclude their spring migration. In some cases you may have White-throated Sparrows year-round with some birds that overwinter at your house and head far north into Canada for the breeding season while other individuals move in to our area from even further south and nest relatively close to us in New York, Pennsylvania, and...
Read MoreSong Sparrow
What is one thing nearly all of the sparrows have in common? Those special earth tones, with varying shades of brown making up a lot of their appearance because they are ground-based birds. This Song Sparrow was showing that off with its camouflage working wonderfully and apparently letting it feel comfortable enough to let me shoot these close-up photos. They really are brilliant little birds, and I mean that for all the many subspecies of Song Sparrow in the world. One wonders how many of these would or will evolve to completely different species over time. Even now it is vital to always...
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